


From Wakanda With Love

by OneForMischief



Series: The Misadventures of Darcy Lewis and Agent Not-So-Dead [3]
Category: Black Panther (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Abeni - OC, Adanya - OC, Captain Jim Murphy - OC, F/M, Latveria, Oluwafunmilaito - OC, Red Room, SHIELD, SHIELD Agent Darcy Lewis, Undercover Missions, Wakanda, Yejide - OC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-05 14:42:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 12,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/724454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneForMischief/pseuds/OneForMischief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SHIELD Agent 93, also known as Darcy Lewis, continues her mission in Wakanda, working her way towards Victor Von Doom and the Winter Soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Her first few weeks in Wakanda are exhilarating and lonely all at once. She tours government buildings, meets with T’Challa’s staff, and becomes familiar with the structure of his government. On her second weekend there, she goes on a camping trip with two of the medical lab interns and they get scared, so she plays along and they sleep in a tree. It’s fun, but she misses Phil, and it isn’t getting her anywhere.

Then, one morning, she finds a note under her door.

* * *

 

Darcy wears her tallest heels and stumbles on the third step from the bottom as she leaves the courthouse at precisely one minute after five that evening, as instructed. She hears the woman behind her and someone else gasp in unison and hopes that –

“Are you alright?” T’Challa asks. She blinks up at him, feigning surprise at having been caught and following it with a double take.

“Oh, your majesty! I’m so sorry, it’s these shoes,” she rambles quickly, righting herself with his assistance.

“Please, call me T’Challa, Miss Lewis. Are you certain that you aren’t hurt?”

She looks up into his warm eyes, full of concern.

“I…I think I’m okay,” she stammers.

“In that case, I must be going. Be careful, Miss Lewis,” he smiles. As he’s walking away, she calls after him.

“Darcy!”

“Hmm?” he asks, turning slightly.

“Please, call me Darcy.”

* * *

 

A few days later, she enters the office space that she shares with two other interns – both Wakandan natives – and finds them giggling and looking at her desk.

“What is this?” Darcy muses, coming closer. There’s a relatively flat box next to her computer, and on top of it rests a single flame lily. She picks up the flower and smiles, setting it aside before she opens the box.

“Oh, wow,” she gasps. The Wakandan girls approach and peer over her shoulder.

“You can look,” Darcy laughs, holding up a pair of beautiful beaded sandals. The colors and pattern of the beading are very similar to the flower.

“This is Ramonda’s bead work,” the younger girl, Adanya, tells them. “She is a friend to my grandmother; I have seen it many times.”

“There’s a note,” Darcy murmurs, spotting it in the bottom of the box. “Darcy, I trust that these will help you to avoid falls in the future, but it was an honor to catch you.”

* * *

 

On her walk home, she is twirling the flower in one hand and carrying the shoes she’d gone to work in in the other when she runs into him.

“I am glad to see that they fit,” he says, glancing at her feet.

“They’re beautiful,” Darcy smiles. “Do you give shoes to every girl who falls in your country, or only the ones you rescue personally?”

“Only you. I had hoped that you would wear the flower as well,” he tells her, taking it from her and gently tucking it behind her ear. She blushes and bites her lip.

“There. Beautiful, as you said,” he winks.

This phase of her assignment might be easier than she thought.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't intend to start using tons of Yoruba in here, but Darcy has a point to make by using it, so here are the translations in this chapter:
> 
> Ek’aro – Good morning  
> Ede t'ole ni – It’s a hard language  
> S'o da e loju? – Are you sure?

When she wakes from the nightmare, Darcy is gasping and clutching her arm over the site of her extraction implant. She remembers cutting it out in a panic, and yet there it is, a nearly imperceptible bump under her skin.

She gets out of bed and walks into the bathroom, splashing water on her face.

“He’s okay. He’s thousands of miles away,” she mutters.

* * *

 

The sunrise is beautiful anywhere, but she finds that it’s stunning here. She was given the choice between traditional housing and a modern studio in one of the high-rises closer to the city’s center, and if she had ever doubted her decision, the view from her little hut at this part of the day would have cleared that away.

When there are demons to chase away, she does it by standing next to the tree behind her house with a cup of hibiscus tea and reminding herself, one by one, of all of the reasons she’s here.

* * *

 

Religion has never been her strong suit. Via her mother, she’s technically Jewish, but her father was raised without any religious influence and her parents had agreed that Darcy would be a better person if she made the right choices because they were right and not because she feared eternal damnation. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, she finds herself intrigued by the religious aspects of Wakandan culture.

If she is to be loved by the king, she must show at least some allegiance to Bast. This is the excuse she’d give her parents, if she had to, but she’s an adult, and a fucking secret agent, and she can go to church if she wants to.

* * *

 

In the temple of the Panther Goddess, Darcy finds the sense of peace that she’d always envied in her more religious friends, and none of the ignorance she had feared. Here are men and women of science and magic, embracing a predator for protecting them rather than attacking. It makes sense to her in ways she hadn’t expected.

This is only one of the things that keep her going back, however. The other is T’Challa.

On her first visit, he had approached her afterwards to express his surprise at seeing her there. By the end of a long conversation after the fifth, she had been introduced to his stepmother, Ramonda, and his sister, Shuri. Darcy had been careful to be respectful, remembering to compliment Ramonda’s bead work, but she’d played her hunches and been a little flirtatious as well.

On the night before her sixth, she finds that it has paid off.

* * *

 

The ringing of the doorbell – an actual bell next to her door, which could not please Darcy more – startles her out of her book, which falls to the floor when she jumps.

“Fuck, there goes my page,” she curses, picking it up and moving to open the door. She hears the chuckle on the other side and is prepared for him.

“Is something about my front porch amusing, your highness?” she asks, hand on her hip.

“You only call me that when you’re ready to sass me,” he grins. “I must say, I’m becoming rather fond of it.”

“I would invite you in, but the neighbors would talk,” she teases playfully, glancing at the elderly woman next door. They both chuckle when they catch her watching them.

“As much as I would like to give her something to talk about, I can’t stay. I’ve just come to give you this,” he says, handing her a small folded note with the royal family’s seal on it.

“Very old school. I approve,” she smiles.

* * *

 

In the morning, she is up with the sunrise once again. Ramonda’s invitation to accompany the family to the temple was not only an honor but also a thrilling advancement in her mission, assuming that it goes well.

Darcy curls her hair, puts on a little makeup, and wears a traditional dress in the same shade of red as her sandals, but it takes less time than expected and she ends up pacing for nearly fifteen minutes before the bell rings.

“Ek'aro,” she says with a shy smile as she steps out onto the porch, closing the door behind her. Ramonda’s eyes light up.

“Ek’aro, Darcy. It is not every guest in our country who learns Yoruba.”

“Ede t'ole ni,” Darcy confesses, blushing slightly.

* * *

 

Shuri walks Darcy home when Ramonda and T’Challa get caught up in political discussions outside the temple, and Darcy is pleasantly surprised when the princess reveals that her brother has told her that Darcy is trained in combat. Shuri intends to succeed him as the Black Panther, but has trouble finding men who are willing to risk injuring her.

“So why are we going to my house? There’s no room to spar there,” Darcy grins.

* * *

 

They draw a crowd, as a princess sparring with an American she’s lent a training uniform to will tend to do, but they take no notice.

For nearly forty-five minutes, the two of them fight, though most of their blows are dodged or deflected. In the end, they stop, dripping with sweat, and beginning laughing. Shuri hugs Darcy and then flops over, dragging her down to the mats.

“I win!”

“S'o da e loju??” Darcy laughs, rolling over and pinning her.

* * *

 

 She wakes with the Yoruba word on her tongue but no memory of it.

She had dreamt of deep green eyes that had seen too much, ringed in worried black. They were asking a question without words, but her answer was yes, and she did not get to say so.

* * *

 

Darcy knows better than to run off alone in unfamiliar areas before the sun rises, but she cannot wait, and there isn’t anyone to ask to come along, because she can’t seek a royal audience and return in less than an hour.

She doesn’t take her taser or her gun.

She races through the jungle on instinct, knowing that the twists and turns she makes around trees and other obstacles are keeping her on a direct path from the tree behind her house. It takes her over half an hour to reach the clearing, and then she drops to her knees without looking up, because she has already seen the panther.

She is resting on a branch in the tree ten yards ahead, and she has been waiting.


	3. Abeni

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's translations:  
> Eni – today  
> Abeni – a Yoruba girl’s name that means “we asked for her; behold, we got her”  
> Se wan ti gba aye yi ni? – Is this seat taken?

Panthers, Darcy knows, are not actually a species of animal, and this is a melanistic leopard. A leopard that could easily kill her.

For some reason, this is not enough to keep her from climbing the tree.

* * *

 

The strange American girl has not been at work the last three days, Adanya tells her grandmother over dinner. By the end of the fourth day, the news has passed from the older woman to Ramonda, who rushes home to inform T’Challa. It is not like Darcy to shirk a responsibility without cause, they suspect.

Shuri agrees and insists upon helping her brother with the search.

* * *

 

“She does not leave her bed unmade,” Shuri says, and with one shared look they are out the door and running.

* * *

 

When they find her nearly a full day later, she is sitting on a tree branch and covered in blood. It drips from her hands down her wrists. Her eyes are closed and T’Challa fears the worst.

“Darcy!” Shuri screams.

* * *

 

Darcy wakes with a start and nearly falls, grabbing the trunk of the tree.

“My goodness, Shuri, that’s a horrible way to wake somebody at this – Shuri! What are you guys doing here?”

“We thought something had happened to you. You’ve been missing for nearly four days now,” T’Challa answers. She detects a hint of annoyance, and it pleases her. “Apparently, you thought sleeping in a tree was preferable to –“

He is cut off by an irritated growl from the shadows above Darcy. She smiles.

* * *

 

“And the blood is from…”

“She’s a messy eater,” Darcy laughs. “She wouldn’t leave the tree, so I was hand feeding her.”

“Hand feeding her _what_?” Shuri asks.

“Two squirrels and a small baboon.”

“You killed a baboon?”

“I made a spear,” she explains, pointing out the place where she’d hidden it and watching with pride as T’Challa examines it.

“I am not sure I want to know how you knew how to do these things, but I must ask,” he says curiously.

“You’re going to think I’m nuts,” she warns, sliding forward to the edge of her branches and beckoning him with a finger. He gets her meaning immediately and moves below her, opening his arms. It’s only an eight foot drop, and she could jump without him, but she likes it when he catches her anyway.

“Hello there,” she grins. When he rolls his eyes and puts her down, she just winks at Shuri. “Anyway, as I was saying, you’ll think I’m crazy, but I think Bast told me in a dream.”

* * *

 

T’Challa sends Shuri home to explain the situation to Ramonda, and the girl gives Darcy a pointed look before she leaves the clearing.

“You should keep an eye on her. I think she’s got some very naughty ideas behind that innocent face,” Darcy tells him as he builds a fire. T’Challa only smiles and glances up at the leopard.

“She is coming down,” he observes.

“Of course she is,” Darcy says, following his gaze. “Eni, Abeni!” she teases the cat cheerfully.

“What did you call her?” he asks, lighting the grasses he has arranged under the wood.

“Abeni. It seemed fitting, after all these weeks of praying in the temple,” she confesses, a little embarrassed.

“It’s a good name for her. Se wan ti gba aye yi ni?”

“Get down here,” she smiles softly, patting the space next to her.

* * *

 

When Darcy wakes the next morning, it’s to a wet feeling on her hand.

“What are you doing,” she groans into T’Challa’s shoulder.

“Sleeping,” he mumbles back, and then they both sit up quickly.

“Oh my god,” Darcy laughs. “You scared me to death.”

Abeni gives no answer except to lick her again.


	4. Wives and Houseguests: Part One

Rumors fly quickly in Wakanda, but they make the rounds even faster when they concern the king, and this one is no exception. Within a week, everyone in the country seems to know that the American the Black Panther fancies has got a panther of her own now.

* * *

 

“They say that Bast herself has sent Abeni to choose you for my brother,” Shuri informs her. The pair of them have given up on sparring for the day due to Abeni’s objections and are sipping tea on Darcy’s porch instead. 

Darcy does not tell Shuri that her dreams are giving her a different reason. She strokes the leopard’s head and hums softly, hoping that it’s enough of an answer.

* * *

 

At the temple, Abeni is the star. The priests and T’Challa exalt her from the moment that she and Darcy arrive, and after the service she rests half in Darcy’s lap and holds court like a queen.

When the priests suggest that the only proper place for a domestic leopard in Wakanda is the palace, Darcy is fiercely proud of the disapproving look Abeni gives them as she attempts to fit more of her eighty-five pounds onto her legs.

“With her companion, of course,” the eldest of them quickly amends.

“It is a good idea. You would both be safer,” Ramonda says thoughtfully.

* * *

 

“How can you have brought so little? I think I took more than this to New York,” T’Challa says, helping Darcy pack.

“Do you normally criticize your houseguests for not wanting to clutter up the palace?” she laughs, throwing a book at him.

“I haven’t had a houseguest since my ex-wife.”

“Wives do not count as houseguests,” she tells him, regretting it immediately.

“I suppose not,” he replies, turning back to her things. “I think the rest are clothes, so I’m –“

“T’Challa, wait. I didn’t mean to be so cavalier about it,” Darcy tries to explain. She reaches out and touches his arm. “Look at me, please.”

When he doesn’t turn, Abeni hisses.

“Oh, I can handle this myself,” Darcy huffs at her, and then T’Challa is laughing and she could swear the cat looks smug.

“It’s weird for me. You’ve been married and divorced. I’m practically a child compared to all of that, and I…I’m sorry that you have to do this, I guess.”

“I don’t do anything I don’t want to do,” he promises, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear and kissing her forehead.

* * *

 

“This squirrel is driving me nuts,” she mutters, and Shuri starts giggling.

“How was I supposed to know she would not kill it?”

“I don’t know, but it’s been three fucking days and she thinks he’s hilarious.”

It’s true – Abeni is lounging on the extravagant bed she and Darcy share, watching curiously as the rodent tries to find a spot where the women won’t be able to look at him.

“We could kill it for her,” Shuri suggests.

“I wonder what the rules are on that,” Darcy muses, and then they’re both laughing again.

* * *

 

The squirrel keeps her awake, and she hates him for it because when she's awake and alone, she misses Phil. She misses him, and yet she’s angry with him. He was the one who sent her away. He should miss her.

Maybe he does, but she won’t know for a long time. Possibly never, if one of them dies before her mission is over.  She has no reason to feel guilty.

She sighs and scratches behind Abeni’s ears.

* * *

 

“She finally killed him,” T’Challa says in lieu of a proper greeting, and then he sees the bow and laughs. “Or not.”

“Or not,” Darcy agrees, looking away from Abeni and her snack. “But I suspect I’m the first guest to ever kill a squirrel in the palace, so there’s that, at least.”

“Indeed you are,” he tells her with a smile.

“I couldn’t sleep last night, with all of the chattering,” she yawns, leaning against him.

* * *

 

When she wakes up, her head is on his chest and her hand has made its way under his shirt. She stretches her fingers out of curiosity.

“Damn, those are killer abs,” she says appreciatively, and then he chuckles and her face turns red.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Yes, I realize that now,” she mutters, and then she squeals in surprise when he rolls over onto his side, laying her down on her back.

“I’m at eye level with your nip– oh, there you are,” she gasps when he pushes her up the bed. She’s pretty sure her pillows are on the floor now, but she doesn’t have time to try to be concerned, because his lips are on hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Darcy has another dream and lets herself have real feelings about it, there's a visit to the marketplace, strategy sessions take place, and one of my favorite characters has a medical crisis.


	5. Wives and Houseguests: Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have to give some translations here and the last one at the bottom, or I'll ruin it all, so:
> 
> O rewa gan lobinrin – You look beautiful (said to a woman)  
> S'owa daada? – Are you okay?  
> Yejide – name meaning ‘image of the mother’  
> Oluwafunmilaito – name meaning ‘the Lord Has Given Me This One To Take Care Of”

_The best way to get close to Victor is to make him come to you._

Darcy rolls her eyes.

_Very helpful._

T’Challa takes the pen away and slides his hand under her shirt.

* * *

 

“The people adore you,” Ramonda observes. She had offered to accompany Darcy to the market because Shuri had an early training session and, despite the fact that they are now living together, they haven’t spent much time alone.

“I haven’t done anything to deserve that,” Darcy replies uncomfortably.

“You are caring for a child of Bast,” the queen mother smiles.

“She needed me to find her,” Darcy shrugs.

“It’s not like a panther to cling so, especially a wild one,” Ramonda says. “She must have a reason.”

Darcy sifts through beaded bracelets, smiling at the girl behind the table.

“Look at the craftsmanship,” she remarks, holding up one made of red braided leather. It has a button clasp of sorts, but instead of a standard round button or piece of metal, the girl had used a small hand-carved wooden panther.

“We will take it,” Ramonda tells the girl.

“Oh no, I can –“

“I insist,” she smiles.

* * *

 

Darcy sleeps between two black panthers that night. She is the safest person in the world, but she still wakes up panicked at three in the morning.

“S'owa daada?” T’Challa asks, his eyes full of concern as he reaches out to her. Abeni watches him carefully.

“He’s not here, and we weren’t fighting because he’s not here. He’s not here,” Darcy rambles.

“You have wild eyes. Come back to me. You are not here, either,” he says, putting a hand on each side of her face. “Look at me, Darcy.”

“I was on a mountain, fighting with…with the man I’m supposed to find. There was blood on my hands,” she sobs. “There was blood on my hands and my arm and I could taste it.”

“It’s okay. It’s okay, I’ve got you. You’re right here,” he soothes, pulling her into his lap.

* * *

 

She takes her fear out on Shuri in the training rooms in the afternoon, and she’s rewarded with a fierce grin and an absolutely savage assault from the girl she’s beginning to think of as a sister.

When they finally stop, they’ve both got bruises on their arms and legs.

* * *

 

The next night marks the beginning of a festival celebrating the start of the rainy season. Although it rains year-round, the next six weeks or so will be as wet as they can get.

The festival opens with a massive party in the square in front of the palace, beneath the statues of the panthers, which means that they must attend and Abeni will hate the attention.

When Shuri knocks on the door, Darcy bends down and kisses the panther on her brow.

“Come on, pretty girl. They asked for you, too.”

* * *

 

“O rewa gan lobinrin,” T’challa smiles when she arrives at the party.

“I’m covered in bruises,” Darcy laughs.

“That is because we are proud warriors,” Shuri winks, slipping off into the crowd of revelers.

“She’s right,” he tells Darcy, holding out a hand.

* * *

 

They dance all night, the three of them, pausing only for the speeches, some of which T’Challa gives with Darcy at his side.

And then the rains come.

* * *

 

“Oh, let me dry you off, you grumpy thing,” she laughs, chasing after Abeni with a towel.

“Give up!” Shuri calls after them, shaking her head fondly.

* * *

 

_How are we supposed to convince the world we’re madly in love when we’re trapped in the house?_

_We rarely leave the bedroom and the servants will tell the world for us._

* * *

After three weeks of rain and sex and conversations that are burned immediately after they’re written and read, Darcy starts wishing for something more exciting to happen.

She regrets it when she wakes and Abeni is gone.

* * *

 

“Abeni!” she screams, pushing all the air out of her lungs. She’s running down the center of the main street, drenched from head to toe, and she’s not ready for what comes next.

* * *

 

T’Challa finds her an hour later, in a puddle of water and blood on the floor of her hut, sobbing into Abeni’s fur.

“Oh, Darcy.”

“I made it in time, but there was nothing I could do. It was just like in the dreams,” she wails. When he sinks down next to her, he sees them clutched to her chest.

“It was just like in the dreams. I got them out but I couldn’t save her.”

* * *

 

“She cries more than it rains,” T’Challa sighs, leaning against the door.

“Give her time. She has just lost a gift from the goddess,” Shuri tells him, handing him a bottle and a cub.

* * *

 

There’s a state funeral, and the entire tiny nation of Wakanda dresses in black for Abeni. It’s covered by all of the major international news networks, which should make Darcy happy because images of T’Challa holding her up are plastered all over the world, but she can’t bring herself to care.

When the priest calls her forward, he calls her Abeni’s mother, which only brings more tears.

She scatters the ashes of her best friend around the statues of the panthers, sobbing prayers to Bast.

* * *

 

Three days after the funeral, Shuri locks Darcy in her room with both the cubs and remains on the other side of the door with her sword drawn until Darcy stops crying.

* * *

 

“I’m sorry for that, but I love you, and you were going so far away,” the princess whispers, kissing Darcy’s temple. “I did not want to lose my sister so soon after I got her.”

“It’s okay. You were right,” Darcy murmurs, stroking the chin of the normal cub. “If they live, Bast would like you to keep this one.”

“What do you mean?”

“The goddess told me in a dream that if she lives, she must be yours, to remind you that a panther who looks different is still a panther in her heart.”

* * *

 

“I will call her Oluwafunmilaito. Oluwa for short, I think,” Shuri says.

The cubs are growing fat at only eight weeks, especially for motherless ones, and T’Challa likes to tease them for this. There is no doubt now that they will thrive and that the villages will soon have something to celebrate again, and the time has come to name them.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I’d like to name mine Yejide,” Darcy tells her, cradling her little black cub.

* * *

 

Yejide keeps Darcy busy enough to stop her from dwelling on Abeni more than she should, and the sharp pain of losing of Abeni keeps her from thinking about Phil too much. It’s not a healthy cycle, necessarily, but it works.

She tries to remember that she's a woman on a mission. She must raise this panther and find a way to capture Victor von Doom's attention.

* * *

 

_I have a plan. Do not worry._

She rolls her eyes fondly, stealing the pen.

_That IS what worries me._

* * *

Darcy and Shuri are dressed in draping red silk gowns when they present the cubs to village. The leopards are four months old, the size of housecats, and the people have gathered once again – this time to celebrate life and, though it isn’t explicitly stated, the bond between the Wakandans and Darcy. The villagers have begun to say that not only does Darcy have the favor of Bast, but she is the goddess’s gift to the royal family, sent to bind them closer together and closer to the panthers.

The names of the cubs are announced, and some of the people in the square wipe away tears when Darcy names little Yejide. She wants to get this over with before she starts to cry with them, but when the center of the stage is given to T’Challa, he doesn’t close the ceremony as expected. Instead, he glances at Shuri, who reaches over and takes the cub from Darcy with a broad smile.

“I think I’m missing something,” Darcy mutters, feeling a little faint.

“Darcy, you have brought joy to my heart and to the goddess, who has seen fit to use you as a vessel for her blessings upon the people of Wakanda,” T’Challa begins.

“Oh my god,” she gasps, lighting up when she realizes the brilliance of his plan.

“Mon'ife e. Se wa femi?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the final translation:
> 
> Mon'ife e. Se wa femi? – I love you. Would you marry me?


	6. This Is All My Happiness

“You cannot send out black wedding invitations,” Ramonda insists for the third time. Darcy rubs her temples.

“You can when you are the Black Panther and it’s your second wedding,” Shuri points out.

“Shuri! I would hope you are not suggesting that a second queen should receive less respect than the first, because –“

“Mother, you know that is not what I-“

“There you are, my little one,” Darcy smiles, scooping up the tumbling balls of fur. “And you, Olu, are you starting more fights with your sister?”

“Perhaps we ought to teach them how it’s done,” Shuri grins, and the two of them are up and gone with Ramonda calling after them.

* * *

 

“I love your mother, but she is driving me nuts,” Darcy sighs.

“This is because she loves elaborate weddings, and you would marry me in a tree if the priests agreed to it.”

“Can we do that? That would be nice. The invitations could be tree shaped, and therefore an acceptable color.”

“Speaking of invitations, I finished the guest list,” he tells her, sliding it across the desk.

“Who could you possibly have added?” she asks incredulously as she picks it up. “The whole kingdom was – oh my god. Am I reading this correctly?”

“Of course you are,” T’Challa smiles.

* * *

 

The next morning, Darcy has to borrow makeup from Shuri to cover the mark she left on T’Challa’s neck before he goes to meetings.

“You’re like teenagers,” Shuri teases. “I can’t believe you gave him a…what is that silly word?”

“A hickey, okay, yes, I gave the king a hickey,” Darcy says a little too loudly, blushing when she realizes that one of the priests had been walking behind her.

It takes the princess nearly five minutes to stop laughing.

* * *

 

“If anything happens to T’Challa, I will make you the queen,” she promises later that night, lying on her bed next to Shuri with the cubs sleeping between them.

“You are a good sister,” Shuri yawns.

* * *

 

“All of the little children are asleep,” Ramonda observes a few hours later, standing in the doorway.

“She is not a child, and neither is Shuri. They were born wise old warriors with broken hearts,” T’Challa corrects, smiling sadly.

* * *

 

In the end, the invitations for foreign dignitaries are black and the domestic ones are nonexistent, because Darcy decides to take Shuri and the cubs on a two week tour of the villages, during which she invites the entire kingdom personally.

Even Ramonda approves.

* * *

 

“You are as lovely as you were the day you left, though I bet you want a long bath,” T’Challa smiles, picking her up.

“You know me so well,” Darcy laughs, kissing him softly and wrapping her legs around his waist. “Shuri, can you –“

“Go, go, I don’t want to see this. She’ll be in my room,” she says, covering her eyes.

* * *

 

“How was your trip?”

“Beautiful. Peaceful, except that every child in every village wanted to feed those fat little cubs,” she smiles. “I swear they’re only growing outward.”

T’Challa hums contentedly, kissing her brow.

“Mos'aro e,” Darcy confesses softly.

“I missed you, too.”

* * *

 

“Oh, my big grandchildren, home at last,” Ramonda coos, scooping them up. “I can barely lift you!”

“The children in the villages lined up around the squares to feed them little chunks of meat, and not one child went home complaining that they were too full to eat it,” Shuri tells her with a smile, keeping her eyes on her cub.

“Yes, enjoy your grandmother now, because your mothers are going to make you little porkers go on a very long walk tomorrow,” Darcy agrees.

“Darcy, your guests are arriving tomorrow,” the queen mother reminds her.

“All the more reason to wear the kids out in the morning,” Shuri laughs.

* * *

 

The entire family waits for the quinjet to land, including the cubs, who are fluffy and cranky thanks to a morning bath from Ramonda.

“Stop biting your sister,” Shuri huffs, separating them with a foot.

“Yours?” Darcy asks, not taking her eyes off of the landing strip.

“How did you guess?”

* * *

 

“Darcy!” Jane shrieks, running towards her. She throws her arms around her friend without stopping to think about the proper behavior for the situation, and Darcy loves her for it.

“I missed you,” she says, squeezing tightly.

“Hey, save some of that for the rest of us,” Tony laughs when the rest of the group catches up.

“Hello, old friend,” T’Challa smiles.

“Bro hug?”

“You can’t ask for a bro hug; you just do it,’ Clint laughs.

“Don’t judge my hugging protocol, Barton,” Tony says, pulling T’Challa in with one arm.

“Okay, children,” Darcy cuts in. “Introductions and hugs. This lovely super genius is Dr. Jane Foster, world-renowned astrophysicist and PopTart addict, but she’s already had a hug. Jane, this is King T’Challa, my fiancé, his sister, Shuri, and the queen mother, Ramonda.”

“Pleased to meet you, your majesties,” Jane smiles, shaking hands with both of them.

“And this handsome old man is Steve Rogers, America’s sweetheart,” Darcy continues, kissing him on the cheek as she hugs him.

“I’m just Beth Marshall’s sweetheart these days. Thanks for her number,” he grins.

“Don’t let me forget to torture you for details later,” she winks. When he moves to shake hands with the royal family, Natasha steps forward.

“Hello, Tasha,” Darcy says softly, squeezing her tightly. “Shuri, this is the one I told you you’d love to spar with, Miss Natasha Roma-“

“It’s actually Mrs. Natasha Banner,” Tasha interrupts with a smile.

“Well, looks like I’m not the only girl who moves quickly around here! Congratulations,” Darcy grins. “Come here, Bruce, you’re getting squished for that.”

He goes along with the contact much more happily than she remembers from before, and she can’t help but tear up a little.

“I’m so happy for you,” she tells them, wiping her eyes as she steps back. “Okay, amended introduction. This is Dr. Bruce Banner and his beautiful wife Natasha.”

“Congratulations, Natasha. I trust you’re not the kind of woman to let marriage keep you from a good fight?” Shuri asks, and Darcy almost laughs at the matching fire in their eyes but she gets distracted when Barton elbows her.

“Don’t forget me.”

“Never,” she says, giving him his turn at a hug. “This is Clint Barton, the finest archer I’ve ever met and the only straight man I know who can quote To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar. And of course you’ve already met Tony Stark.”

* * *

 

“I let you get away and you become the mouthpiece of a goddess,” Tony observes with the half-smile she knows so well. The two of them are standing near the temple, taking a break in a tour of the village. The three of them, really, because Yejide is in her customary place at Darcy’s side.

“Let me get away, huh?”

“Well, you know.”

“Mhm. So, Tasha and Bruce?”

“Tasha and Bruce,” he laughs. “Oh, you would have loved that. Big Green started looking out for her on missions and calling her Spider, and then one day it just slipped out of Bruce’s mouth.”

“It was him the whole time,” she smiles.

“Yeah. He just said ‘Hey Spider, can you pass me that tea ball?’ and she knew. They eloped like three weeks later.”

“Love is crazy,” Darcy laughs.

“I guess you’d know all about that, right?

“I don’t know. It hasn’t been that crazy here. I mean, I would never have thought that putting together seating charts for my wedding would involve international politics, but there’s –“

“Darcy, I know,” he interrupts, and he looks so serious about it that she doesn’t laugh it off.

“Follow me.”

* * *

 

There’s a saying in Wakanda, “this is all my happiness,” which is said when lifting your arms as if to say that nothing beyond what you have right now could ever make you any happier.

She says this as she enters her tiny hut with Tony at her side, in the hopes that anyone who sees them will think that she is teaching her wealthy guest some Wakandan humility.

* * *

 

“What is it that you think you know?” she says, cutting right to the chase.

“I know you work for SHIELD.”

“Tony, you’re –“

“When you came to New York, you were thinner than you were in Jane’s pictures, more muscular, and you can’t play it off as ditching the freshman fifteen, because you could almost kick my ass in the ring and  I think you were holding back,” he says firmly, and she knows that he’s got her.

“What else?”

“What?”

“You’ve been going over this for a long time. What else do you have?” she sighs, scratching Yejide behind her ears.

“Jarvis scans all luggage that comes into my house. You brought a Sig Sauer M11 with you, and it didn’t have a serial number stamped into it. They only do that for one agency, as far as I know. And the coat you wore every time we went out was coated in the same bulletproof polymer that I worked on for the uniforms my team wears.”

“You’re good, Tony,” she smiles. “I’m Agent Ninety-Three, and I am absolutely not allowed to tell you that.”

“You’re not here to kill T’Challa, are you? Because I brought a suit, and I’ll kill you if I have to, but I don’t want to.”

“God, no, he’s the only one here who knows who I really am. Listen, this is complicated and dirty and your team can’t know. You don’t want to be involved in this,” she tells him, trying to say it with her eyes as well as her voice.

“If you’ve got a bulletproof coat, somebody much higher up than you thinks you stand a good chance of dying before you finish whatever you’re here to do, and they sent you anyway. Let me help you come home in one piece, Darcy.”

* * *

 

“There you are. We were getting worried,” Clint says, but he’s all smiles and Darcy doesn’t believe it for a minute.

“Sure you were. What have you guys been up to?”

“He has been playing with Olu,” Shuri smiles. “She adores him.”

“How much did you feed her?” Darcy laughs, and then Clint is protesting the accusation and nobody asks what took them so long.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long! I went to see someone on Friday and was talked into staying away all weekend, and I hadn't taken my laptop. The next chapter will be up faster!


	7. You Say Optional, I Say Fuck You

“This one is addressed to only you,” T’Challa says, tossing the small white envelope on top of the pile of cards that Darcy is opening.

“Probably another kid I went to kindergarten with,” she guesses, rolling her eyes as she picks it up. When she tears it open, she immediately realizes that she was wrong. The front of the card is completely blank, and she feels a sense of dread as she opens it.

_93,_

_News of 107’s marriage has reached us. The continuation of your journey is optional._

_3_

“I need to go find Tony.”

* * *

 

“I didn’t expect the queen-to-be at my door at this hour. Very scandalous,” he smirks, and then she’s ducking around him.

“Shut the door.”

* * *

 

“They’ve just cut you off.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what this means,” she sighs, running a hand through her hair in frustration.

“Okay, talk me through the mission.”

“I can’t.”

“Darcy, you can either do this alone or you can talk me through it, but I can’t help you if I don’t know what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into.”

“This is going to sound crazy, but there’s a man I need to rescue. They call him the Winter Soldier –“

“He was the U.S.S.R.’s answer to Project Rebirth. They used him as an assassin, a mass murderer, a spy, a super soldier…he was the Swiss Army knife in their toolkit.”

“He was also used to train the more elite students in the Red Room’s Black Widow program,” Darcy tells him.

“So he has a connection to Natasha?”

“They were engaged at one point. When she gave SHIELD her backstory, she told them that when he was between missions, he had terrible nightmares and flashbacks. Sometimes he would just snap, and he didn’t know who she was. He’d tell her he was an American soldier named James and demand to see her commanding officer, and then they’d take him away. Sometimes he’d be gone for a year or two. The last time it was over five, and then she went rogue and joined our side.”

“So now that Natasha’s married, this Agent Three doesn’t care whether or not you get him out of there? That’s more than a little fucked up, even for SHIELD.”

“There’s more, but they don’t know that.”

“More?”

“I had gotten kind of stuck on the possibility that he was a brainwashed American prisoner, and then when I was at the tower, I saw Steve’s sketches…Tony, he’s Bucky.”

“James Barnes,” Tony says, eyes lighting up.

“Steve had drawn the last time he’d seen him, and he was hanging out of a train in Russian territory. He was holding on with the arm that the Russians replaced with the Winter Soldier’s bionic one.”

“Jesus Christ. You really are in over your head.”

* * *

 

“You’re coming to New York before you go anywhere else. We have to make the announcement tomorrow, as soon as the press gets here,” Tony tells T’Challa. “If SHIELD is pulling this shit, she can’t count on the safehouses, the identification, any of it. I can hook her up with everything she needs.”

* * *

 

The morning starts with a round of interviews, press conferences, and meetings, and by the afternoon, Darcy is glad that the Avengers are all used to the media circus by now. None of them complain, and Steve, like a perennial teenager in just this one way, is ready to play a game of whatever sport he can talk the others into as soon as it’s over.

* * *

 

Soccer is the game of choice in Wakanda, and even Jane will play, because her parents forced her into a summer league as a kid and it’s the only sport she knows the rules to.

Tony, Darcy, Clint, Jane, and T’Challa make up one team, and they happily get their asses handed to them by Bruce, Natasha, Shuri, Ramonda, and Steve, although they all call foul when Bruce turns a little green and starts growing.

“Hey! No Hulking out in goal!” Darcy yells, laughing when he winks and shrinks back down.

* * *

 

Nearly a week passes this way, in a blur of public relations and private moments of happiness, and then she dreams of him again.

* * *

 

There’s blood on her arm and in her mouth, as usual, and the world is a blur when he forces her to meet his eyes.

“Lewis! Lewis, listen to me. You are going to die if we don’t get off this mountain.”

* * *

 

She wakes in a panic, but a moment later she’s laughing. He’s still alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you go Phil-hatin', don't forget that he doesn't know that James is Bucky. So he's still abandoning a guy, but he doesn't realize that he meant anything to anyone but Natasha.
> 
> Still a dick move, though.
> 
> Next time: Monarchs. The wedding. An interesting move on Tony's part. A meeting with a goddess. Shuri says naughty things about a certain red-headed royal. And more!


	8. The Internal Organ

On the morning of her wedding, Shuri braids Darcy’s hair and Jane works on her nails while Natasha happily assigns herself the task of going over the political mess that comes with the occasion.

“Norodom Sihamoni is a marvelous ballet instructor, and his Russian is very good, as well as his English,” the spy remarks.

“Why did you invite a ballet instructor?” Jane asks.

“He’s also the king of Cambodia. Very nice man, according to T’Challa, and I’ve already gotten him to promise to introduce you, Tasha.”

“Thank you,” Natasha smiles, continuing on. “Albert and Paola of Belgium, Von Doom of Latveria, Namor …Margrethe of Denmark, she will give you a painting, her own work, but it will be easy to like and you will not need to lie. She will like to know where she can smoke, also…Akihito of Japan likes to talk to Tony about fish, and Tony gets-“

“Antsy, I know. Can you ask Bruce to rescue him? Bruce likes fish, right?”

“More than Tony does. That’s fine…Abdullah and Rania I have not met, but this is because SHIELD has never taken issue with them.”

“I’m really excited to meet them,” Darcy says. “Probably more than anyone else. I’m hoping to talk Abdullah into some scuba diving in the lake before they leave.”

“He will say yes, I think. The Obamas, Thor, of course, Haakon and Mette-Marit of Norway…Harald cannot handle the climate…oh. Britain made an interesting move,” Natasha hums.

“I think that’s a move on our little Shuri,” Darcy laughs.

“Oh?” the princess asks, glancing over at the paper. “Harry? I would not take myself out of the line of succession, but if anyone ever got me close…”

“Just how close did he get you?” Tasha asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Shuri laughs.

* * *

 

Yejide and Oluwafunmilaito walk down the aisle first, led by Steve, who lost a coin toss with Clint. The Wakandans cheer enthusiastically as soon as the three of them come out of the pavilion, and Darcy doesn’t need to be able to see colors through the golden silk to know that the captain’s cheeks are turning pink.

“That was cruel, Barton,” she smiles as Tasha kisses her on the cheek and picks up her bouquet of flame lilies. Her hair and dress combine with the flowers in a way that has her looking like the personification of fire, and the most charming thing about it is that she hadn’t noticed until Bruce told her. The two of them are the next to go.

Clint escorts Shuri after them, and the pair follow Natasha’s example of kissing the bride on the cheek.

“When next we can speak, we will truly be sisters,” Shuri smiles, squeezing Darcy’s hand.

“Don’t let the goddess bite,” Clint winks, taking Shuri’s arm and leading her out.

“Goddesses do not bite unless provoked,” Thor advises sagely, while Jane mouths “Ignore him.”

“Thanks, big guy,” Darcy laughs, and then it’s their turn to go and she’s left alone with Tony.

“I should tell you that you look gorgeous and I should wish you luck, but I don’t want to do that, so I’m just going to –“ he murmurs, and then his lips are on hers, and it’s soft and stupid and the least convenient kiss she’s had in the last year, but it’s over before she can think about it too much.

“You’re an Avenger now, even if nobody else knows it. You tell Bast that she brings you home or I bring her down,” he vows.

* * *

 

When she takes the heart-shaped herb from the priest, Darcy thinks that it looks more like the internal organ than the Valentine’s Day nonsense.

It’s the last thought she has before she meets the goddess.

* * *

 

“Wake, dear one.”

The voice cuts through the cloud of confusion, sharp and sweet at once, like a blade covered in honey.

“Bast,” Darcy murmurs, opening her eyes and sitting up. She can feel the bed beneath her, but she cannot see it. The room seems to be made of nothing but soft white light, with slight angles indicating what might be corners. Standing directly opposite her is a woman with long dark hair, or is it a leopard with bright blue eyes?

“You’re much less…certain than I expected.”

“You are the uncertain one, in so many ways. You are uncertain where your heart lies, in both love and loyalty.”

“I know you from somewhere,” Darcy muses, “but I can’t remember…”

“When you have done what you must, you will, and I will have much to explain to you. For now, I have only three pieces of advice for you before you go. First, do not cause undue harm to those who wish you well, even if they do wrong by you unknowingly.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“Good. Secondly, you must not be afraid to kill those who would kill you or yours when there are no alternatives. As part of the leopard’s duty to her cubs, she removes what dangers they cannot outrun. And finally, Darcy Lewis…listen to your gifts. They will become louder soon, and it will be easier if you are ready for them.”

“What does that –“

“I will see you again soon. Oh, and Darcy - tell Anthony Stark that you are no messenger. His issues with me are his alone,” the goddess smiles.

* * *

 

The food, the cake, and the music are excellent, but Darcy barely has time to notice any of it, given the number of people she’s being introduced to. She doesn’t really mind,

because it keeps her laughing, talking, and memorizing instead of thinking about her situation.

* * *

“You should have brought Beth,” she tells Steve as he leads her around the dance floor. “I bet she looks great in gold.”

“I haven’t introduced her to the team yet, and I thought a royal wedding and Tony were a little much for one day,” he laughs, twirling her.

"You can say that again," Darcy chuckles.

* * *

 

After she works her way through the highest profile guests, T’Challa leads her to the man she’s been waiting for.

“Victor, I’m glad you could make it,” he smiles, shaking hands with the masked Von Doom.

“I wouldn’t dream of missing your wedding. Eku ori ire, old friend.”

“Thank you. I’m forgetting my manors – Darcy, this is Victor Von Doom of Latveria. Victor, iyawo mi niyi, Darcy.”

“It’s an honor to meet you, your greatness,” Darcy smiles.

“I like you more than his last wife already. Tell me, Queen Darcy, have you given much thought to the level of involvement you’ll have in Wakandan politics?”

“I have, actually,” she answers, eyes sparkling.

* * *

 

“May I have the next dance, your highness?” Tony asks just as the song ends. Darcy glances at Clint, who nods.

“She’s all yours. I’m going to go see if I can talk Shuri into sneaking off into the jungle,” he winks.

“Ugh, that’s my _sister_ , Barton,” Darcy groans, rolling her eyes when he shrugs and heads in the princess’s direction.

* * *

 

The song is soft, but Tony’s hand on her hip is firm.

“Why did you do this, Tony,” she mutters helplessly.

“I’m not afraid of you. You needed to know,” he answers.

“And you think T’Challa –“

“You were assigned to him, and he said yes before he met you. That’s not what I want,” he whispers in her ear. “I want coffee, and worrying about each other on missions, and heated debates about politics and how to panther-proof the tower.”

The song ends and Darcy steps back.

“If you’ll excuse me, I promised Victor Von Doom a dance.”  

“Of course, your majesty."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I never promised NOT to throw in another ship.


	9. If

The ring is cold and smooth and foreign on her finger. It’s been three days, and still she finds herself studying it continuously.

* * *

 

“Come and visit soon, okay?” Darcy asks cheerfully, squeezing Jane.

“Of course,” the scientist agrees. She’s the last to say goodbye, and as she gets into the quinjet, the smile slips from Darcy’s face.

“You will see her again,” T’Challa says knowingly. His queen gives no answer.

* * *

 

“Your heart isn’t in this,” Shuri remarks, having just defeated Darcy soundly. The princess takes a seat against the wall of their training room and pats the space next to her, smiling when Olu bats at her hand.

“I know,” Darcy admits, joining her. “I’m just…not looking forward to all of this traveling.”

“So do not go. You are the queen.”

“It’s not that simple, Shuri. There are expectations that I have to live up to now,” she sighs, scooping up Yejide.

* * *

 

_Shuri mi owan,_

_I am so sorry. I know that you won’t accept this right away, and I understand that, but you need to know. I have come to think of you as the sister I never had, and I hope to see you again in many years, when it’s your time to meet with Bast. In the meantime, please care for Yejide as your own. She will need you._

_This was something that I had to do. It was my duty, and the goddess blessed my mission. Maybe that will be enough._

_Mon'ife e. Do not forget that._

* * *

T’Challa seals the letter inside his own and places them with the other documents that will be given to Shuri if anything happens to him.

“You didn’t have to do this,” Darcy blurts out.

“Neither did you,” he smiles, turning back to her.

“It’s my job.”

“It was, yes. But now you have been told that you can go back to America, to your office in Chicago and your friends and your life, and you have said no. You choose to risk your life to rescue a man you have never met. A man who only sometimes thinks he needs rescuing. For this, mon'ife e. Eeyan pataki ni e, Darcy.”

“I’ve always wanted to ask you how you love me, you know,” she sighs, sitting on the end of their bed.

“Must you? Is it not enough that I love you?” he asks, sitting next to her and putting an arm around her.

“But I –“

“You’re afraid that I love you too much, but there is no such thing. I love you because you are smart, and beautiful, and a free spirit. I love you because you are good with a gun and a bow and a sword, and because you do not like to be limited by others, and because you will not tolerate injustices, large or small. For these reasons, I love you, and I will kiss you goodbye soon and ask the goddess to protect you from the fire that you walk into.”

“What if I die?”

“If you die, which I do not believe will happen, then I will lead Wakanda in mourning my queen.”

“And if I live?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shuri mi owan - my dear Shuri  
> Mon'ife e - I love you  
> Eeyan pataki ni e - You're very special
> 
> I think there will be six more chapters of this, giving it fifteen chapters just like Agent Not-So-Dead, and they will include Darcy and T'Challa's time in Latveria and the information she needs to have when we move into the third part of our story. It currently has a working title of "Insert 'Friends' Reference Here?" but uh...hopefully something comes to me soon.


	10. Taking It Slow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ese gan - Thank you very much  
> Moni lati malo. Mon'ife e, iwo mon padabo. - I have to go. I love you, and I will be right back.

“If you keep carrying her at this age, she’ll still want it when she weighs thirty kilograms,” Ramonda chides.

“I can carry thirty kilograms,” Darcy replies, trying not to roll her eyes. “I could carry her if she weighed fifty kilograms.”

 “Let her be, Mama,” Shuri agrees. “It will be weeks before they see each other next, and Yejide is young for such a thing.”

Yejide purrs loudly, head-butting Darcy’s cheek, and that’s the end of it as far as she’s concerned.

“Shuri, can you get the last bag for me? My arms are full.”

* * *

 

“May you be safe in the hands of our goddess, your majesties,” the head priest says, smiling brightly as he finishes the blessing of their journey. Darcy gives him her most brilliant smile in return.

“Ese gan. May the goddess keep Wakanda in her highest graces.”

T’Challa thanks him as well, and then he gives his final orders to his guard, leaving Darcy with only a moment to say goodbye to Shuri.

“You must bring many photographs. I have always wanted to visit Washington, D.C.”

“I’m not sure I’ll have much time for sightseeing before we move on to London, but I’ll try,” she says, knowing that she will not take a single photo.

“Alright, mama, you must hand over the little one now,” T’Challa says gently. “Time to go.”

“So it is,” Darcy murmurs, hold Yejide away from her and meeting her eyes. “Moni lati malo. Mon'ife e, iwo mon padabo. Be good for Shuri.”

* * *

 

As soon as the plane takes off, T’Challa pulls a cell phone out of his pocket and tosses it to her.

“Jarvis is number three in the speed dial.”

“Thank you,” Darcy smiles. Cell phone use is very restricted in Wakanda, and this is the first time she’s had access to a phone since she handed her SHIELD one over in Chicago, nearly eleven months ago. It’s hard to remember that she used to text more often than she spoke.

The phone rings once and then Tony’s AI answers in his usual crisp but polite fashion.

“Mr. T’Challa, I am afraid Mr. Stark is unavailable. If you would like to –“

“It’s Darcy, Jarvis. Security protocol three-oh-five, badge number ninety-three.”

“Of course, Ms. Lewis. I will transfer you to Mr. Stark immediately. No record of this call will be maintained.”

“Thank you, Jarvis.”

* * *

 

They land in D.C. fifteen hours after they left Wakanda, although it’s only eight hours later due to the time difference, and the airport is a blur of handshakes, camera flashes, and the presidential motorcade. The entire day whips by like this. By the end of it, Darcy is ready to collapse.

* * *

 

“Good morning, your majesty. Can I interest you in a very large black coffee and a blueberry donut?”

“What the – Tony!” Darcy yells, sitting up quickly. “Where’s T’Challa?”

“Having breakfast with Namor. Official story is that you’ve got jetlag, which fits with you having only been on two long flights in your entire life, so here we are,” Tony smiles. He’s sitting on the bed next to her with a bag of donuts in his lap and a cup of coffee in each hand.

“How long have you been here?”

“Five minutes. Your hair looks absolutely crazy, by the way.”

“Shut up and give me the coffee.”

* * *

"I'd have done more if you had come to New York like we agreed," Tony says, handing her the paper.

"What is this?"

"List of lockers in major cities. Combinations on all of them are 93-3-93. Each one contains a prepaid phone with ten minutes of airtime, wigs, makeup, and appropriate clothing. I had to have Jarvis judge his sizes from a grainy security tape from 1997, but they should be close enough."

“Tony, this is…incredible,” Darcy gasps. “How did you do all of this?”

“Don’t worry about it. When you get home, we’ll cross a few out and give the list to Tasha and Bruce. They could use a honeymoon. Just memorize it and stay safe.”

“I thought you wanted to worry about me on missions,” she smiles.

“Yeah, well, I got the coffee today. I’m taking this slow.”

“Always a gentleman.”

* * *

T’Challa and Darcy spend the next two days giving interviews and participating in press conferences, during which Darcy makes a lot of speeches and answers a lot of questions about how she’ll rule a country she may never go back to.

* * *

 

“This is the hardest part,” she tells T’Challa when they leave for London. “I hate standing around and talking about how beautiful Wakanda is and how much I love the people when I’m about to abandon them.”

“Try telling them how in love with the queen you are and how much you’re looking forward to ruling collaboratively with her when you know she’s about to run off and risk her life,” he replies, wrapping his arms around her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate this chapter, with the exception of Tony. Hate it. Ugh.


	11. We Were Always In The Jungle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In case you weren't totally sure, I do not own the Duchess of Cambridge, her offspring, or Prince Harry. I basically just own a pair of shoes and a Snuggie.

London is a short affair – three days, the same as D.C. After the press photos and a few interviews, they spend their time checking out traditional tourist destination with various members of the royal family, and Darcy is photographed holding the Duchess of Cambridge’s baby while the young woman takes off her coat at lunch on the second day.

The child is only in her arms for a minute or two, but it’s long enough to terrify Darcy and for Prince Harry to point it out. He’s funny, she’s found, and she and Kate have enjoyed ribbing him about Shuri. It’s comfortable.

She can’t wait to leave.

* * *

 

_“I don’t know if this will work,” he says. He’s worried – the words tumble out in a rush, and he’s trying to open something but his artificial hand doesn’t work at the same speed as the other one._

_“Why are we in the jungle,” she murmurs, and it’s too quiet. It’s as if someone has turned down her volume. She tries again. “Why are we in the jungle?”_

_“We were always in the jungle. Jesus Christ, you’re…I’m sorry, Lewis. I have to do this.”_

* * *

 

When she wakes, she’s on the plane, next to T’Challa. It’s right where she should be, and yet –

“Wake up,” she says urgently, elbowing him.

“Hmm? What is it?”

“Another dream.”

“More blood?”

“I was bleeding out this time. I think I was dying, but that’s not why I woke you up. There was no snow. There were trees, and I could hear birds and smell flowers…it was like…like Wakanda, but not there,” she tells him.

“Could be Argentina or Brazil. Would they have moved him?”

“I don’t know. Almost all of our intel is from before Romanov turned, and even before she switched sides, she never knew where they took him when he disappeared. Moving him around and housing him out of country might have been a precaution in case she decided to go looking,” Darcy reasons.

“We’ll be in Latveria in about an hour. You’ll find out soon enough.”

* * *

 

Victor has a car waiting for them at the airport. He’s the first person not to meet them himself, and Darcy enjoys his narcissism. He may want T’Challa to be an ally, but he’s not willing to look like it if he doesn’t have to.

Darcy has a feeling that this is going to be interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up soon - Kristoff Vernard gives off weird vibes, Darcy is impressed by things that shouldn't impress her, and Victor Von Doom gets an intriguing offer.


	12. A Dangerous Game

Victor does meet them in the lobby of his castle, and he’s as charmingly arrogant as Darcy remembers.

“T’Challa, Miss Lewis, it is a true pleasure to see you again. Is it Miss Lewis? Ms.? Mrs. Panther? I’m afraid I can’t recall how his dreadful first wife did it.”

“I’m going with Darcy, I think, though I’m afraid it’s rather pedestrian.”

“On the contrary; it is an old name, and I find that it suits you quite well. In any case, welcome to Latveria. If you would like, my heir, Kristoff, will give you a tour of the castle now.”

“That would be marvelous,” Darcy smiles.

* * *

 

Something about Kristoff Vernard sets her off immediately. She’s read about him in SHIELD’s collection of files related to Von Doom, but it hadn’t prepared her for the vibe that he gives off – one of venom and betrayal. She aches to reach out and strangle him.

She asks him casual questions as she memorizes the layout of the castle, but his answers don’t feel right. He speaks of loving Victor as a father, and yet there is a lifelessness in his eyes when he says his name.

Darcy glances at T’Challa after the second time she notices this, and he gives her a small nod.

* * *

 

“We should have made a drinking game out of dinner,” Darcy whispers in T’Challa’s ear as they’re lying in bed that night.

“We would have been destroyed. He did it seventeen times,” he smiles. She’s a little heartsick over the way he knows without asking that she was referring to Doom’s habit of talking about himself in the third person.

“How did you know –“

“I always catch up to you,” he answers, kissing her softly.

* * *

 

She wakes in the night, like usual. This time she can’t stop laughing.

“Go to sleep,” T’Challa groans, turning over. Darcy considers this for a moment and then presses her fingertips to his forehead. Almost immediately, his eyes snap open.

“How did you do that?”

* * *

 

“No. Darcy, this is a dangerous game, and nobody plays it better than Victor. You can’t win,” T’Challa mutters furiously.

“No? I’m sorry, did you just tell me ‘no’? You can’t –“

“I’m not telling you anything. I’m asking. As your husband, I am asking you not to take this chance.”

She leaves without another word.

* * *

 

The path from their guest suite to the lab in which Victor will most likely be found is long and winding, and Darcy uses the time to think about the various ways that she could present her offer to Victor.

She also considers T’Challa’s point about the danger involved. It might be safer to stick to the plan and try to find the information on her own, but it might also take longer than the day and a half that she has.

When she reaches the door to the lab, she closes her eyes, intending to ask Bast for guidance. Instead, she sees her own hand, wiping the snow from the ice.

She takes a breath and pushes the door open.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time - we find out what Darcy did to weird out her husband, who didn't even blink when she told him that she regularly communicates with a deity, and what deal she's about to try to make with Victor. Also, Dr. Doom talks about himself in the third person some more, which never stops being funny.
> 
> Also - for non-comic readers, Kristoff Vernard is a Marvel character, not an OC, and he's generally a bag of dicks, but Victor usually loves him anyway for some reason.
> 
> EVEN MORE NOTES - The next part of the story will go up at the same time as chapter 15, just like I did it last time, and will be called "The Bullet and the Blade," after both events it encompasses and references already made in this story. It will be gifted to Sinope and mae for catching those references!
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	13. Mere Curiosity

“One does not walk into Doctor Doom’s lab uninvited, Darcy,” Victor admonishes, and the deadliness is very clear beneath the playful veneer.

“I have something to show you. Something that I think will interest you very much, if you’ll trust me enough to see it.”

“Trust? You are a stranger in my house – a mere girl, even if you are suddenly a –“

“I’m an agent of SHIELD,” she confesses.

“I knew you were too clever to be a queen.”

“Queens can’t be clever?” she teases cheerfully, taking a seat in the chair that looks the most likely to be his favorite. She’s taking a leaf out of Barton’s book – irritate the target and then make yourself indispensable.

“A queen must enjoy sitting on comfortable chairs and pretending to do great works. Clever women have no time for this,” Doom observes.

“This chair is comfortable enough. Should I call for tea and plan a charity ball, or will you allow me to counsel the great Victor Von Doom, despite my lowly position of Queen?”

“You want something in return.”

“I do,” she smiles. “I want everything you know about the status and whereabouts of the man they call the Winter Soldier.”

“You ask for much, for an agent of my enemy. What counsel can you offer the great Doctor Doom?”

“I have a gift,” Darcy tells him. “But it will allow only so much – I can show you a traitor. I can show you blood and battle and something else entirely, but I have to touch your skin.”

* * *

 

“I cannot believe that we are still alive.”

“I’m not stupid enough to have kept talking if I thought he’d kill us,” she huffs.

“No, instead you’ve risked your entire mission. He could tip off the Russians, he could –“

A knock on the door interrupts T’Challa’s third round of ranting, and Darcy would be grateful for it, were the man behind the door not Kristoff Vernard.

“Mr. Vernard,” she says brightly, trying to conceal her contempt for the man.

“Doctor Doom requests a private audience with her majesty at once.”

* * *

 

“You have considered my offer,” she says, and it’s not a question. Victor would not take well to being asked a question that has already been answered.

“I have, and out of mere curiosity, I shall accept it. Conditionally, of course.”

Darcy smiles and pulls a black silk scarf from her pocket.

* * *

 

Though she cannot see them, the scars under her fingertips are severe. They feel thick and rippled, and she can’t imagine the pain he must have felt when he put on the mask for the first time.

There’s no time to dwell on them, though, so she closes her eyes beneath the blindfold and pushes outward with her mind.

* * *

 

_Kristoff Vernard, running a sword through Victor just after rule of Latveria is passed to him._

_Valeria Richards at age nineteen, trying to pry the mask from an unconscious Dr. Doom and screaming that he cannot leave her now, not like this._

_Doom, smashed like a beetle and oozing blood. He is surrounded by his own Doombots, and they have been turned against him. Vernard once more, laughing from the highest window of the castle._

_The wedding of a man of Doom’s height, whose face Darcy cannot see, and a blonde woman who radiates an aura of intense happiness._

_Flowers on a grave, being tended by Susan Storm._

* * *

“Enough,” Victor gasps, take a sudden step backwards.

Darcy waits for the sound of his mask being replaced before she removes her blindfold.

“I told you. I have a gift.”

“Why do you think these visions mean anything to Doctor Doom?”

“What you do with the things I’ve shown you is your choice. These are your endings, and you have to choose between them. I can’t say what will bring one over the other, but I hope that you will choose to be happy. Now, will you hold up your end of the bargain?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time - Victor either keeps his end or doesn't, Darcy and T'Challa make their exit, and the more excruciating details of the Winter Soldier's history are revealed.


	14. Like a Horror Story

When Darcy and T’Challa are boarding the plane the next day, von Doom arrives to send them off in person.

“This isn’t like you, Victor,” T’Challa smiles, shaking his hand. “I must say that I prefer this to your usual nod at the door.”

“Yes, well, in any case,” Victor mutters, turning to Darcy. “I have brought you all of my files on the matter we spoke of, and I will not inform my friends of our agreement.”

“That’s very kind of you,” she smiles, taking the folder from him.

“I am simply interested in seeing whether or not you are capable of this.”

He’s lying, and so Darcy acts on her impulses and throws her arms around him.

“Thank you, Victor.”

* * *

 

“You hugged Doctor Doom. I don’t think anyone has hugged him since –“

“Since he sacrificed the first Valeria, I know,” Darcy mumbles, waving him off. “They don’t know who James really is.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, there’s a paper trail a mile long. Look at this - according to these files, the Russians referred to him as John Doe until the first time he woke, when they began labeling him as James in their records. After he was given the serum and christened the Winter Soldier, the name ‘James’ doesn’t appear unless he has a break and starts to remember who he is. There’s an interrogation transcript here, and it looks like he never gave a last name…they thought he couldn’t remember.”

“But you think otherwise?” T’Challa asks, studying the pages she pushes towards him.

“I think he was protecting Steve. The Howling Commandos had become famous by the time he fell from the train, and the name Bucky Barnes would have made him a weapon to use against Captain America. James the American soldier is true enough to maybe get him home, but not enough to make him an asset. If he had known Steve was lost…”

* * *

 

Darcy spends hours poring over the files, and they read like a horror story. He’s been subjected to multiple rounds of very invasive testing, including a spinal tap and the removal of bone marrow from his hip. He has been tortured repeatedly, with time-lapse photos taken, just to measure how quickly he would heal if tortured by someone else. Once, in 1986, they punished him for a failed mission by taking away his bionic arm, severely bruising and lacerating the attachment site, and reattaching it.

“Jesus Christ,” she mumbles.

* * *

 

When she gets to the files on his relationship with Natasha, she finds them strangely sparse until she realizes that they must have kept the majority of that information in Romanov’s files.

It does seem that the Red Room had considered the merits of “breeding” the two of them at one point. There are references to a failed attempt involving another man, along with sperm analysis results and a fairly well-reasoned theory that the combined effects of both parents having been injected with versions of the super soldier serum will yield embryos that even Natasha’s advanced immune system wouldn’t be able to kill. Intense brainwashing sessions were conducted, but their efforts had been thwarted by James.

When asked about their sexual activities under the influence of sodium thiopental, Natasha had told the psychiatrist attached to the project that they had been very active, as ordered, but that they had been “finishing in other ways.” She went home with orders not to allow that, and just past midnight, any chance of enjoyable afterglow was cut short when the Winter Soldier followed his orgasm with a panic attack. He had, as Natasha had told SHIELD, attempted to kill her and insisted that he wasn’t who she thought he was.

He spent the next three days trying to break out of his holding cell and the breeding project was scrapped. He has been frozen ever since.

* * *

 

“Any idea where he is or why Victor had all of this?” T’Challa asks, handing her a blueberry muffin.

“Carb-loading. Smart. We were right, it’s Argentina. He’s in a lab outside of Caracas, hidden near the base of Pico Naiguatá. Victor was offered the chance to _buy him_.”

I’m sorry, _what_?”

“They sent short profiles out to sniff out buyers. Victor made a bid for thirty million dollars and the death of Natasha Romanov, but only if he was given a complete profile and time to review it. This is what they gave him. According to the letter attached to the files, they sent them out to three other interested parties as well.”

“Damn.”

“I have to go get him _now._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For cinematic universe readers who haven't read the comics - The KGB did, in comic canon, essentially attempt to "breed" Natasha with a man named Alexei Shostakov, whom she became engaged to, and then scrapped the project by telling her that he had died so that he could become the Red Guardian. It seemed to me like they'd try again with the Winter Soldier if they thought it had a better chance of success.
> 
> Coming up - Will Victor keep his word? How will Darcy get to South America? Why does Phil make an appearance in chapter two of The Bullet and The Blade? Why am I telling you this now??


	15. SHIELD Agents Have All The Fun

Darcy is never as grateful for the absurd privileges that come with being both a queen and a SHIELD agent as she is when they land at O’Hare. She and T’Challa receive a police escort directly from their plane to a secured room, and she recognizes the officer in charge from the Moretti incident.

“I’m sorry to call you out on Christmas, Captain Murphy,” she says when the door closes behind them. The captain’s eyes light up in recognition.

“I knew an Agent Lewis was flying in, but I didn’t make the connection until I saw you with my own eyes, ma’am. How have you been?”

“Well…you know, became a queen, saw the world, that sort of thing,” she laughs.

“Maybe I oughta put my name in for SHIELD. Seems like you have all the fun,” he grins. “You must be her husband, the king. I’m Captain Jim Murphy of the Chicago Police Department. I was there the first time your lovely wife hurt herself on the job.”

T’Challa laughs as the two of them shake hands.

“Jim, as much as I love a reunion, I need a very large favor. Two of them, actually, and they’re both way beyond classified. Would it be enough to tell you that I’m rescuing a POW and –“

“Say no more, Agent Lewis. My son is in Afghanistan, and if it were him, I’d hate the man who slowed you down. What can I do?”

* * *

 

“If this is the last time I get to talk to you, I want you to know that this is the closest thing to happy that I’ve ever been,” she tells T’Challa with her face buried in his chest.

“Don’t talk like that. You’ll come back. You’re far too stubborn to die without bringing him home first,” he says, pulling back to smile down at her.

The knock on the door pulls them apart.

“Agent Lewis? It’s Jim.”

“Come in.”

“I retrieved the bag, ma’am. The car’s waiting, too. Time to say your goodbyes.”

“Alright, you heard him. When you get to the hotel, ask them to ring Mr. Clark’s room and inform him that his business partner has arrived for dinner. Give him the files and tell him that I can handle it from here.”

“I will. Should I tell him anything else?”

“Yes. Tell him that this makes two Christmases in a row now without so much as a card, and not to think I’ve forgotten that. Now go, before you make me cry.”

“I’ll watch that terrible yule log channel for you,” he promises, kissing her brow.

* * *

 

“How do I look, Murphy?” she asks, turning slowly.

“Not one bit like Darcy Lewis,” he tells her. “I would pass you on the street and never notice.”

“Perfect. Thank you so much, Jim. Now get home to your family and enjoy the rest of the holiday, alright?”

* * *

 

Darcy waits until ten minutes before her boarding call and then pulls the phone out of her purse.

It only rings twice.

“Hey, how’s that deal going?” Tony says, using his business voice. He must be with the rest of the team.

“I’m fine, just wanted to let you know that I’m getting on the plane in a few minutes.”

“Hang on one sec. Guys, I’ll be right back, I just – yeah, that’s fine,” he says, mouth away from the phone a little. Thirty seconds later, he’s back.

“Did the clothes fit? I tried to give you the rich college kid look.”

“They’re great.”

“Good. Where are you headed?”

“I should be landing in Argentina in about five and a half hours, if we take off on time. How’s everybody there?”

“They’re good. They’d be better with you here.”

“Maybe next year,” she smiles to herself, twirling her long blond hair. “I’ve got to go, though. I’ll see you soon.”

“You’d better. Stay safe.”

* * *

 

Tony made great choices - nobody notices yet another blonde girl in a University of Chicago hoodie with a pair of Uggs over her skinny jeans and a big Coach purse. Darcy breezes through security by keeping her badge on top of the rest of her bag’s contents, despite the fact that she has her uniform, her service weapon, a silencer, and extra ammunition in there. She also has a knife in each boot, because she knows that she will need a blade on hand if things go wrong and she needs an extraction.

She takes her seat and settles in for what might be the last sleep she gets for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your kudus and comments. You're the best readers anybody could ask for, really.
> 
> The Bullet and The Blade will be up in less than 5 minutes!


End file.
